


atria, ventricles

by HorribleThing



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Inhuman Character, Intimacy, Kissing, M/M, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:42:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8212508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorribleThing/pseuds/HorribleThing
Summary: Kravitz and Taako start to have their chat.  But not much talking happens, really.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Canon will render this null and void in a couple days, so let's pretend while we can.

“Sit back down,” Taako says, unlacing the ribbons on his boots.  “Might as well be comfy while we get this over and done with.”  He finds himself complying, because it does seem like a practical suggestion.  He watches as Taako kicks off his boots, leaving them in an untidy pile by the door.  Kravitz should not be surprised that when Taako sits on the sofa it isn’t like a normal person.  He lounges, legs stretched out over several cushions, body turned to face the back of the sofa, to face him.  What does surprise him is how close Taako is, the side of his hip pressed against Kravitz’s leg.

There are things that he needs to say, protocol that he needs to go through.  Instead his mind works too fast, a million thoughts, a million concerns.  Instead, he feels flesh fade from bone and the words that leave him are-

“I was… so worried about you.”

“There’s nothing to be worried about, my man.”  Taako’s hands brush over zygomatic arch, mandible.  Unhesitating and almost tender.

“You died, you died so many times, you’re already in trouble for having more than the once you’re supposed to get, how can I not-”

“I can’t tell you how to live your life, or not life, whatever you have.  But for me taking those thoughts and burying them deep down inside, like really really deep, works pretty well,” he smiles then but it looks exhausted.  Taako drums his fingers over the back of his skull.  The soft click-click-click-click of fingernails on bone something he feels more than hears, feels vibrate down his spine and into the hollow space inside his ribs.  He leans into the touch, and with a slight bit of effort his being softens and he feels himself refocus into something that at the very least looks human.  Taako’s hand is now running through his hair instead of touching bone.

“See?  There you go.  Not so tough if you put your mind to it,” Taako tells him.  Kravitz takes one of Taako’s hands in his own, subtly flickering through different states of existence, and squeezes it.  And that’s when Taako kisses him, soft and slow and hardly chaste.

So Kravitz kisses back.

That seems to be the signal that Taako needed, wanted, because he kisses harder and shifts, moving to straddle his lap, his skirt pushed up around his thighs and Kravitz rests his hands on the strip of bare skin there, above his stockings.  Taako kisses not with aggression but with intent, using teeth and tongue with more skill than he was honestly expecting.  He leaves enough room between their bodies for his hands to move down from Kravitz’s hair to his chest, unbuttoning his jacket and unknotting his tie, pulling it off without even looking.  Taako starts to unbutton his shirt one-handed, the other hand sliding under the back of his collar as soon as he can.

“You, ah, move rather fast don’t you?” he says when his shirt is half open down his chest, not expecting the startled look it earns him.

“I haven’t, uh, exactly been with someone who wanted to go slow before... do you want me to stop touching you or...”  He trails off and bites his lip, concerned.  Hesitation in his hands and in his voice.

“No,” Kravitz tells him, one hand at the small of his back urging him closer, the other in his hair pulling gently, firmly, until Taako tilts his head back, his throat exposed.  He leans in and takes skin between his teeth and sucks and bites until he is certain there will be a mark there.  He moves slightly, and then does it again.  And again.

After the third time Taako makes a sound, needy and pleading.  The fifth and Taako is grinding down against him.  Kravitz unlaces the top of Taako’s shirt and lets it fall open.   Leaves mark after mark like a map.  Or a constellation.  He touches with the intent to tease, his hand slipping under the hem of Taako’s top, up his spine vertebra by vertebra.  His hand under the top of Taako’s stocking, fingers resting on his femoral artery and feeling the blood pulse there.

When he pulls away, Taako looks at him, his eyes hazy and smitten, his lipstick smeared like a wound.  Kravitz reaches up with his thumb to wipe some of it away-

And oh.   _Oh_.

He has made himself bodies of crystal and stone, of rusted metal and clay.  He has destroyed himself and made himself anew more times than a mortal could comprehend, and had his bodies destroyed by others a few more times on top of it.  But he has never felt so close to falling apart.

The problem isn’t that he wants Taako, and in this moment he wants Taako more than mortals want most things.  Desire is not unfamiliar to him.  The problem is that he’s starting to care.

He has never been fond of someone before, never allowed himself that weakness.  Endless people have begged him to spare their parents their children their husbands and wives.  And he has never once hesitated.  He honestly can’t relate.  Couldn’t relate.  But now, if he continues with this, things might be different.  He thinks that if something lived in his chest, it might ache.  

This is not who he was made to be.  

Instead of kissing Taako again, he carefully pushes him back.  Instead of saying _‘I can’t,’_ the words that leave him are-

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Oh,” Taako says, and pulls his hands away just a little too fast, like touch has suddenly become painful.  And maybe for him it has.

“Forgive me for my lapse in judgement but that would certainly count as a breach of conduct and-”

“It’s fine,” Taako says, climbing off of him.  “Better that we stop now before things got capital m Messy.  Wouldn’t want something to screw up your performance review, right?”

“Right,” he says.

Taako’s face is like a mask now.  His smile is easy and empty, despite the smeared lipstick,  and his stare as blank as a doll’s.  And he knows that he might never get to see Taako open, unguarded, wanting, again.  And he knows that he should be fine with it.

It’s better this way, with walls between them.  Professional.

  
As Kravitz buttons his shirt, he finds that his hands are shaking.  How odd.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cherrybaum on tumblr. Please feel free to come and talk with me.


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